Jason Mun » Jason Munhttp://jasonmun.com
SEO, Digital Marketing & Data JunkieWed, 06 May 2015 22:22:53 +0000en-UShourly1Links from Yellowpages are Unnatural According to Googlehttp://jasonmun.com/links-yellowpages-unnatural-according-google/
http://jasonmun.com/links-yellowpages-unnatural-according-google/#commentsWed, 04 Sep 2013 14:08:01 +0000http://jasonmun.com/?p=732It was just a normal day at work. The day was going extremely well, ticked off a few things off the the to-do list, had a few giggles and a few wins. Clock ticked 5pm, about to pack up and leave and *ding* a notice about a recent reconsideration request for a client arrived in […]

It was just a normal day at work. The day was going extremely well, ticked off a few things off the the to-do list, had a few giggles and a few wins. Clock ticked 5pm, about to pack up and leave and *ding* a notice about a recent reconsideration request for a client arrived in my inbox. The content of that notification SHOCKED me.

Background

Since Penguin 2.0 dropped, it seemed to have hit the Australian SERPs hard. Just looking at the algoroo.com, flux is basically happening on a daily basis and there hasn’t been any consistency in a very long time. There has also been an increase in Google sending out notification via GWT and the new “Manual Actions” section about unnatural links pointing to the website. I have been working on a link removal/cleanup project for a client since May the 11th, a week before Penguin 2.0 hit. We knew that we their link profile was a risk and proactively tried to remove risky links in advance.

To cut the story short (sorry, had to remove some specifics to protect the privacy of the client):

Worked on link cleanup project for 2 months

Prepped all the necessary documentation and records of our link removal efforts

Site received an unnatural link warning early August

Immediately submitted a disavow file and a reconsideration request with supporting documentation

5 days later received feedback saying that are still some dodgy links, with examples

Spent another 2 weeks removing more links

Resubmitted a reconsideration request and updated the disavow file

6 days later received another feedback saying that there are still links that unsatisfactory

Here’s a screenshot of the notification:

A link from freaking Yellowpages.com.au was flagged as unnatural!!!! It was at this point I was like:

Yellowpages Listing Unnatural…Really?!?!

Let’s look at some SEO metrics for yellowpages.com.au:

Pretty good wouldn’t you say?

Yellowpages as a directory has been around forever, even before Google penetrated the Australian market. Despite the negative views on Yellowpages, the general public still uses it. I used to be a web analyst at Sensis who owns Yellowpages and from months of staring Omniture data, the site gets insane amounts of traffic and usage.

There are a lot of businesses in Australia that still advertise and see the value of directories. That is why websites like Yellowpages, Whitepages, Truelocal and Hotfrog exists. A lot of brick-and-mortar as well as trades businesses still heavily rely on directories for leads and business.

Let’s Look at the YP Listing

As you can see, it looks like any other YP listing. There are a couple of anchor text links within the “About Us” section of the listing. One is an exact match and another is a brand link. These could very well be the cause.

Yellowpages being such a large organisation would surely have editorial guidelines. Those links wouldn’t be in there if it did not adhere to their editorial/product/advertising guidelines. I’d imagine that they would have strict internal processes/systems to keep things consistent.

In my opinion, those links aren’t manipulative at all and is definitely not part any a link scheme. Unless Yellowpages themselves have deliberately “SOLD” them those links as part of a package.

The majority of businesses would not know any better and their main focus would be to promote the business and generate more leads. My client certainly didn’t know those links existed and didn’t even care. All they cared about was having their phone numbers, address and information displayed correctly.

If it is indeed in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, who’s responsible? Yellowpages or the advertiser? Should all Australian businesses remove all links to their websites from Yellow Pages? What kind of a user experience does this give consumers?

What does this mean?

Are all types of links risky?

What else can a small business owner do to promote their business if the oldest form of advertising is deemed unnatural?

]]>http://jasonmun.com/links-yellowpages-unnatural-according-google/feed/25Using the Google Keyword Planner for Keyword Researchhttp://jasonmun.com/using-the-google-keyword-planner-for-keyword-research/
http://jasonmun.com/using-the-google-keyword-planner-for-keyword-research/#commentsMon, 01 Jul 2013 13:23:34 +0000http://jasonmun.com/?p=704It has been far too long since I posted anything useful on this blog, things has just been a little too hectic juggling time between family, work and leisure. If you haven’t already heard, Google are phasing out the much loved Google Keyword Tool in the coming months and encouraging the search community to use […]

]]>It has been far too long since I posted anything useful on this blog, things has just been a little too hectic juggling time between family, work and leisure. If you haven’t already heard, Google are phasing out the much loved Google Keyword Tool in the coming months and encouraging the search community to use the swanky new Keyword Planner Tool. This blog post will cover some tips on how to use the new tool.

Background

On May 20th, Google announced the launch of the new Keyword Planner which combines the Keyword Tool and Traffic estimator in to one. As part of the launch of the new tool, Google also released a document outlining the main differences between the old and new tool. If you use the Google Keyword Tool as much as I do, you would have noticed that Google recently included a notification prompting users that the tool will be unavailable in the coming months and encouraging the use of Keyword Planner.

This news has been covered in these major publication, if you are interested to read more about it:

Logging In to Keyword Planner

In order to use the keyword planner tool, you need to have a valid Google Adwords account. Unlike the old tool, if you do not have a valid account, you will not be able to get access to it. As we all know, being logged in in the old tool gives you significantly more data, so just use the same login details.

Introducing Keyword Planner

There are a some differences between the Keyword Tool vs Keyword Planner. You can read more about here. I’ll summarise a few key differences, taken from the article:

With Keyword Tool, we showed you statistics for broad match by default with the ability to get statistics for other match types, like phrase and exact match. With Keyword Planner, you’ll get historical statistics only for exact match.

Average search volume data is higher in Keyword Planner as compared to the exact match search volume data you got with Keyword Tool. That’s because we’ll show you the average number of searches for a keyword idea on all devices

Local and global monthly search volume column has been rolled into one

Not sure if I agree with these, it almost feels like we have less granular data and control. Anyways, let’s walk through the tool in more details and see how we would use it for keyword research.

1. Search for Keyword and Adgroup Ideas

This is essentially the same as the Google Keyword Tool, it just looks different. You still have majority of the settings and options here with the exception of device targeting which is missing from the Keyword Planner because everything is incorporated into a single data point as an average. So, the standard keyword research process that you are used to will still apply. Enter a few seed keywords into search box, select your targeting options and you will be presented with a list of keyword ideas. Or if you choose to enter a specific URL and get Google to return keyword ideas, that works the same as well.

Here’s an example of me researching about “shoes” and “sneakers”:

And here’s an example searching using a specific URL:

If you ever need to swap between the different types of searches or use the other options that Keyword Planner has to offer, just click on the “Modify Search” button:

Where is Exact Match?

Changing different match types in the new tool is not as intuitive and obvious compared to the old Google Keyword Tool. Here’s where you change the keyword match types:

It is also important to note that changing match types does not update the search volume data in the interface nor in the file exports. Here’s proof:

Maybe it is a bug, please let me know in the comments if you experience a different behaviour.

Downloading Keyword Ideas

There is a cool feature when you download the keyword ideas. Introducing “Segment statistics by month”, this is really awesome:

The opportunities are endless, now that you have the historical search volume data in CSV. You can use excel, slice and dice the data and gather some actionable insights.

2. Enter or Upload Keywords to See How They Perform

This is a new feature that wasn’t in the Google Keyword Tool. One that I am extremely excited about since Google revoked access to the Google Adwords API last year to avoid abuse. I was gutted that they revoked my access which meant that I couldn’t use Seogadget’s Google Adwords API Extension for Excel. It was really painful having to manually use search and export in batches via the tool just to gather search volume data.

There are 2 options for you to choose, you can either enter a list of keywords in the match types and get search volume data and traffic estimates OR upload your keyword list via a CSV file.

Testing option 1 with a list of 5,314 keywords quickly displays an error which limits the number of keywords to a thousand at a time – Fair enough!

Testing option 2 with a list of 5,314 keywords in a CSV file, formatted according to Google’s instructions here. Upload the CSV and hit “Get Search Volume”.

BOOM! Search volume data for all 5,314 keywords. Having this upload functionality alone will be a massive time saver even without the Google Adwords API access – thank you Google gods =).

What this means is that you can now, gather all your keyword ideas from Uber Suggest, YouTube keyword tool, Soovle and the likes. Merge all your keyword ideas into a master CSV file and upload the file to Keyword Planner to gather data and intelligence.

3. Multiply Keyword Lists

This is also a massive time saver when it comes to keyword research and certainly a great feature of the Keyword Planner tool. Say for example, you have a real estate client that services multiple states and cities in Australia. Rather than using excel to concatenate keywords together, you can use this feature to automatically multiply keywords and get search volume data all at once. For example:

You can add up to 3 multipliers, so get creative!

Conclusion

Overall, I think the Keyword Planner tool is great and is definitely a massive time saver when it comes to keyword research. It is a shame that the data provided is less granular than the Google Keyword Tool, particularly not being able to distinguish desktop vs mobile search volume. I guess with the launch of enhanced PPC campaigns, Google will want everything to be consistent. I hope you found this post useful. As always, feel free to leave any comments or questions below.

]]>http://jasonmun.com/using-the-google-keyword-planner-for-keyword-research/feed/16Competitor Keyword Research for SEO for #seomeetuphttp://jasonmun.com/competitor-keyword-research-for-seo-for-seomeetup/
http://jasonmun.com/competitor-keyword-research-for-seo-for-seomeetup/#commentsSun, 09 Jun 2013 11:27:43 +0000http://jasonmun.com/?p=700Last week at the monthly SEO meetup in Melbourne, I was privileged to be invited to present and speak to a group of online marketers at the Honey Bar in South Melbourne. To keep it interesting and cover a range of tools, approaches and tips – I decided to cover the topic of competitor keyword […]

]]>Last week at the monthly SEO meetup in Melbourne, I was privileged to be invited to present and speak to a group of online marketers at the Honey Bar in South Melbourne. To keep it interesting and cover a range of tools, approaches and tips – I decided to cover the topic of competitor keyword research.

]]>http://jasonmun.com/competitor-keyword-research-for-seo-for-seomeetup/feed/1Great Content F#$%ing Works…Seriouslyhttp://jasonmun.com/great-content-fing-works-seriously/
http://jasonmun.com/great-content-fing-works-seriously/#commentsSat, 27 Apr 2013 15:26:53 +0000http://jasonmun.com/?p=673Speak to anyone who knows a thing or two about SEO, 9 out of 10 times they will tell you that “Content is King”. Read any book about online marketing, visit any blog about search and read any article about content marketing, they all convey the same message – great content should be both engaging […]

Speak to anyone who knows a thing or two about SEO, 9 out of 10 times they will tell you that “Content is King”. Read any book about online marketing, visit any blog about search and read any article about content marketing, they all convey the same message – great content should be both engaging to users and be relevant to search engines. Here are some of my personal favourite resources that outline the importance of content in SEO:

In this blog post, I’m going to share with you how I managed to help a client of mine achieve great visibility in the SERPs and drive targeted traffic by investing in great quality content and with minimal link building.

Before I start, I had to exclude and hide some of the data/information due to a skin-tight NDA that have with this client. Here it goes…

Introduction

This client of mine is a startup in the ecommerce space, competing in the home *censored* space. They were just starting up and were in the wireframe stages of their website. This was the perfect time for me to get involved, this was the window opportunity for me to get all the SEO goodness on the website. Convinced the client, signed them on and away we go. This was the beginning of July 2012.

SEO Best Practice Was Applied

Like any SEO agency and consultant would do, I did my due diligence and conducted a series of audits and analysis to ensure that the website is moving in the right direction. You know, the usual keyword research, technical audit, information architecture optimisation, etc. I basically used this ecommerce SEO checklist. By the time I was done, I made sure that the website was technically sound, products and pages were properly siloed/categorised and addressed all potential issues for duplicate content. This whole process took about 2.5 weeks, which would have bring us close to the end of July 2012.

Content, Content & More Content

By this stage, I have done all my persona development and keyword mapping to every single category, subcategory and page on the website. I had a clear picture what every page on the website needed to achieve, whom it had to target and what relevant keywords to it should rank for. With all these information ready in an excel template, I met up with the client to run them through and explained to them how we were going to put this into action. These were my content requirements that I recommended:

Type of Page

Number of Words

Placement

Category

150 – 200

Introductory paragraph

Subcategory

150 – 200

Introductory paragraph

Product

300 – 500

Product description, specs, testimonials, reviews

Like any business owner or marketing person they had questions, they had some concerns:

How it was going to look like with the current design – This is where wireframes and annotations come in handy. By providing mockups for the client, it will help them visualise the look and feel and from there, the website designer can then bring it to life by working their magic

Every page and product needs to have unique content? Are you serious? How much is that going to cost? – This is where I had to do some convincing and encouraged them to invest in copywriting using real life examples of how existing ecommerce players are utilising content

Once we got through all the hurdles and got everyone on the same page on how we were going to proceed with content production, I provided the client with detailed writing guidelines that they could pass on to their copywriters that they have already engaged. The guidelines were pretty basic, it was basically the excel template that I generated earlier on with keyword mappings plus a few additional points outlining the word count and preferred call-to-actions that can be used. Never once in the guidelines I mentioned anything about SEO or keyword density. I wanted the ensure that the copywriters write content for the users and not for the engines.

I have a saying that I use frequently “The quality of work is only as good as the brief you provide”. Put it simply, if you do not take the time to put together a detailed and specific brief/guideline if you are getting someone else to write your content, you bound to get CRAP back.

Content production took about 3 weeks in total including several iterations and revisions. By the time this entire exercise was done, we were in the middle of August 2012.

Preparing for Launch

By this stage, everything was in order. Content was entered to the website, meta-data were optimised, internal links were optimised and a website launch strategy were in place. We published the website on a staging server for testing. I did a crawl with Screaming Frog just to sanity check that there weren’t any major issues with the website prior to launch.

Due to some budget constraints, we couldn’t do a HUGE launch strategy. Besides, by this stage, we would have spent most of the investment and dollars on copywriting. All we had plan for were some press releases, social and some blogger outreach (nothing massive).

Finally, we launched the website mid September 2012. Let the monitoring and measurement begin.

Results

Let’s now fast-forward to the end of March 2013, 6 months later…

Here’s how SERP visibility improved since the website launched:

We were tracking 100+ non-brand keywords

On launch, within a week we had 14 page 1 rankings

Position 1 rankings grew by 600% compared to the first benchmark

Page 1 rankings grew by 157% compared to the first benchmark

The improvement in SERP visibility, contributed to the increase in traffic:

Organic traffic to the website has been increasing month-on-month since launch

What About Link Building

The purpose of this post is to prove a point that having awesome content F@#$ing works. As mentioned earlier in the post, we had very limited budget to play around, therefore have not done massive amounts of link building. Here’s the proof:

As you can see, these metrics aren’t HUGE, compared to these guys who are also competing in the same vertical:

Conclusion

Happy Client = Happy Me

I hope that I have provided enough information and data to prove to you that CONTENT IS REALLY F@#$ING KING! I wish I could share more information and show you real life examples of the content. Unfortunately, unless someone wants to pay my legal bills – I am locked into a skin-tight NDA.

Before you dive straight in to producing content for your website, always make sure that you are well informed with data collected from keyword research and persona development. Make sure you do your homework and if you are outsourcing or getting someone else to produce the content for you, take the time and make sure that your brief is detailed and specific.

As always, if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment, connect with me on Twitter or Google+.

]]>http://jasonmun.com/live-smx-sydney-13-link-building-post-penguin/feed/0[Live] SMX Sydney ’13 – 10 Link Building Tools – How to use them to get linkshttp://jasonmun.com/live-smx-sydney-13-10-link-building-tools-how-to-use-them-to-get-links/
http://jasonmun.com/live-smx-sydney-13-10-link-building-tools-how-to-use-them-to-get-links/#commentsThu, 04 Apr 2013 03:59:27 +0000http://jasonmun.com/?p=413Speaker Profile: Name: Paddy Moogan Company: Distilled Twitter: https://twitter.com/paddymoogan Google+: https://plus.google.com/104334957300160196129/posts Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/paddy_moogan/10-link-building-tools-paddy-moogan-smx-sydney Notes: Paddy is going to map out what the link building process would look like from end to end How to do it, how to report it and how to measure it, what tools to use Download his slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/paddy_moogan/10-link-building-tools-paddy-moogan-smx-sydney Use bidsketch to create […]

]]>http://jasonmun.com/live-smx-sydney-13-40-wordpress-tips-security-engagement-seo-performance/feed/0[Live] SMX Sydney ’13 – Mining Your Search Keywords & Social Data for New Revenue Opportunitieshttp://jasonmun.com/live-smx-sydney-13-mining-your-search-keywords-social-data-for-new-revenue-opportunities/
http://jasonmun.com/live-smx-sydney-13-mining-your-search-keywords-social-data-for-new-revenue-opportunities/#commentsThu, 04 Apr 2013 00:06:55 +0000http://jasonmun.com/?p=405Speaker Profile: Name: Jon Quinton Company: SEOGadget Twitter: @jonquinton1 Google+: https://plus.google.com/100878256385748589476/posts Notes: We are overwhelmed with data, we generally struggle to mine the right data Jon will be cover some of the tactics they use at SEOgadget Start by understanding the user flow from the start to the end of the funnel. Identify all steps and […]